This is a story I wrote for an advanced fiction class a couple of years ago. The characters are fictional, but the setting is the four acres of land I grew up on, and Danni's personality is a lot like mine was when I was a kid.
Snow White and Rose Red
Sweat
glued Danni’s shirt to her back and plastered tendrils of her dark hair that
had escaped her ponytail to the sides of her face, and her feet slid around
inside her dad’s rubber boots, which came up all the way to her knees. It was
as hot and sticky as any other June day in Texas, but it would take more than
hundred degree weather to get Danni back inside the house, especially now. Jason was over again.
--
“I did it! I did it! I beat you!” Danni
cried happily from the highest sturdy branch in the biggest post oak in the
back yard.
“No
fair!” said Laura from a couple of branches down. “I’ve seen you practicing
during my riding lessons. You’ve gone and turned into a little spider monkey on
me.”
“It
still counts,” said Danni. “You beat me every other time we raced.”
“Yes
I did,” said Laura, at last reaching Danni’s branch. The two sisters sat
side-by-side, looking out at the forested landscape of their country
neighborhood.
“Well,
you know what this means,” said Laura when they had both recovered from the
climb. “You won, so you get to pick the game today.”
Danni
screwed up her face in concentration. “We played Narnia
last time, Little House on the Prairie the
time before, so…fairy princesses,” she decided.
Laura
grinned. “I’ll go get Dad’s ski poles.”
“I’ll
wait by the Fairy Mound!” said Danni. “The evil Sidhe of the Unseelie Court are
no match for us!”
--
Laura
was still inside the house, but if she didn’t want to go exploring, Danni would
just do it by herself. It was better this way, really. If Laura wasn’t going,
then Danni was free to wear the big boots, which were best for wading in the
creek. And there were plenty of games she could play by herself. It would be
just as much fun.
Danni
wiped a hand up her forehead, thinking the sweat would make her bangs lie nice
and flat against the top of her head, but it really only made them stick
straight up in the air. Upon reaching the gate in the fence that separated the
backyard from the horse pasture, she bent down and slipped between the rusty
horizontal bars, her ten-year-old frame small enough to fit even with the
backpack she wore doubling the width of her torso.
On
her way to the creek, Danni passed the Fairy Mound, a mysterious heap of earth
jutting up about eight feet above the rest of the flattest part of the pasture
that had been there as long as she and Laura could remember, two battered ski
poles they used as swords lying discarded in the weeds that grew at the base of
it. She passed the dilapidated shed with the archery target tacked to the back,
several arrows sticking out of it at random from the last time she’d pretended
to be Merida at the highland games. She passed the fence line where the
dewberries grew every May, then the one with the nightshade bush at the end of
it. She wrinkled her nose at the memory of the burnt toast milkshake cure she’d
had to drink after showing her mom the little red berries she’d been eating one
day when she was seven. She passed the small, moss-covered pond where she and
Laura dug for old bottles buried in the mud and looked for crawdads under
rocks.
--
“Laura, Laura, look at this crawdad I
caught!” said Danni excitedly as she burst into the kitchen through the sliding
glass back door.
“Ah-ah-ah,”
said her mom, not looking up from the onions she was chopping. “Boots.”
Danni
rolled her eyes but retreated onto the patio long enough to kick her boots off,
before dashing back inside, into the living room, around the corner into the
hall, and into Laura’s room, where she stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes
wide.
“Is
this your sister?” asked a boy Danni had never seen before. He was big, had
dark hair, and wore a jacket with a large letter C over the left breast.
“Yeah,
that’s Danni,” said Laura. The two teenagers were sitting on Laura’s bed and
the radio was tuned to a pop station Danni hated.
“Who
are you?” said Danni, still staring at the intruder.
“This
is Jason,” said Laura. She sounded nervous, which made Danni look at her
instead, which reminded her why she had come into her room.
“Look,”
she said, holding up the slimy gray freshwater crustacean for her sister to
see, its tail, antennae, and legs all writhing in midair in a futile attempt to
escape.
“Gross!
What the hell is that?” said Jason, recoiling and covering his nose. “It smells
like dead fish!”
“It’s
a crawdad,” said Danni, glaring at him. “And you’re not supposed to say the
h-word.” She looked at Laura again. “Isn’t it cool?” she asked, holding it out
farther so Laura could get a better look. “I think it’s even bigger than the
one you caught last week.”
“You
catch those things?” Jason demanded of Laura,
sounding appalled.
Laura’s
eyes darted from Jason to Danni and back again.
“Of
course she d—” Danni began, but Laura interrupted her.
“No,”
she scoffed. “Why would I want to do that?”
“But—”
Danni tried to protest.
“Get
that thing out of here, Danni. Why do you always have to bother me with your
stupid kid stuff?”
--
The
tall grass gave way to stubbly clumps left over from the horses’ repeated
grazing, and then finally to muddy earth that sucked at the enormous boots as
Danni reached the edge of the creek. She squatted down right at the bank. After
a few seconds, she spotted what she was looking for. The tadpoles she’d found
the other day were still there. She slipped one arm free of her backpack’s
straps and twisted it around so that she could reach the zipper, then retrieved
the Mason jar she’d snitched out of the pantry from where it had lodged itself
between several dog-eared library books. Slowly, she dipped the mouth of the
jar beneath the surface of the water and waited. At first, the tadpoles
scattered at the disturbance of their habitat, but eventually they calmed down,
and one of them swam straight into the jar.
Grinning
in triumph, Danni pulled the jar back out of the water and held it up so she
could see the tadpole darting around the edges.
--
“Laura,
look what I found in the creek!” said Danni proudly, sticking the Mason jar in
her big sister’s face.
“Ew,
get that thing away from me!” Laura shrieked, throwing herself sideways so hard
that she sent her textbooks and notebook paper flying off the table and onto
the kitchen floor. “MOM!”
Danni
stuck out her tongue and hurried away with the Mason jar cradled safely against
her chest. She went back outside and carried her treasure over to the fort
she’d made between the largest two fig trees, where a Rubbermaid bucket
two-thirds full of scummy water from the pond sat awaiting its new resident.
She tipped the jar into the bucket and watched the tadpole swim around.
--
Danni
turned the final page of Mockingjay
and sat in numb silence for a few minutes. She’d stolen it from the bookcase in
her parents’ room two days before (it had been placed next to the last three Harry Potter books on the “PG-13” shelf)
and sneaked it out to her hideout between the fig trees, safe from the dew and
the humidity in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag, and she’d spent most of her time
since then curled up with it under the dome of leaves and branches next to her
tadpole’s bucket.
As
she closed the book, she thought back to all those times she and Laura had
played Katniss and Prim a few years ago. She hadn’t read any of the books yet
back then—only after her tenth birthday that spring had she been allowed to
read the first two. No, back then, Laura had only told her enough about
Everdeen sisters for them to pretend. But when the third book came out, Laura
had suddenly declared that game off-limits. Danni had asked her why, but Laura
had refused to say.
Now
she knew. The contrast between Laura not wanting to play a game with her
because she cared about her and not wanting to play a game with her because she
was too preoccupied with her own life sent a sharp ache up Danni’s throat.
--
“I’m
not playing, Danni!” Laura shouted,
slamming her bedroom door closed.
“But
there’s no point planting a secret
garden if there’s no Mrs. Medlock to take away the key and lock me in my room
so I have to escape through a tapestry!” said Danni, pounding on the door. She
tried the knob, but Laura had already locked it.
“We
don’t have tapestries!”
“Yeah,
but we have curtains. If you just
help me take the screen off my window, I can escape through that.”
“No.”
“Come
on! You won’t be Miss Minchin so I can pretend the wood playhouse is my secret
Indian palace, and you won’t be Jadis so I can defend Narnia, and you won’t
even be Hattie, even though you like bossing me around so much that you’d be a
perfect Hattie!”
“But
you never do what I tell you, so would you really want to be Ella if I’m
Hattie?”
“Yes,
because then at least you’d be playing with me!”
“I’m not playing.”
“But
Laaaaaura!”
“Fine!”
Danni
blinked. “Really?”
“Yeah.
We’ll play Ramona and Beezus. ‘Ramona, you’re a pest! Go away!’ There. Game
over.”
“Ugh!
That doesn’t count!”
“Just
leave me alone, Danni,” said Laura. “Not all of us are ten with no summer
homework to do.”
“You
liar, you’re not doing homework! I saw you painting your nails and listening to
your iPod just now!”
“Just
go check on your stupid tadpole and leave me alone!”
“I
hope Jason dumps you! Ever since you met him, you’ve turned completely boring
and mean!”
A
sudden blare of pop music from inside the room ended the conversation, and
Danni stormed away. She decided that she was going to be Ella anyway and
proceeded to do exactly as Laura had said; she went outside to check on the
tadpole. It had been a month since she caught it, and despite Laura’s taunts
that it would die and her mom’s insistence that she put it back in the creek
(which her dad had overruled with a long-winded speech about how this was the
perfect way for Danni to learn responsibility), it was still alive. It had
doubled in size and grown back legs. When she looked close enough, she thought
she could see the stubby beginnings of front legs too.
--
It
was August. Danni’s knees were scabbed and scraped from all the times she’d
fallen down while rollerblading up and down the neighborhood’s roughly paved
streets, her skin was tan, her hair was several shades lighter, her hands were
callused from the rough bark of the post oaks she climbed every day, and the
soles of her feet were as tough as leather from running barefoot over every
terrain their property offered, from the sticker patches around the house to
the gravel driveways. The arrows sticking out of the target on the back of the
shed were closer to the bullseye than they had been in June, and the creek and
pond were both about two feet lower after a month with only one rainstorm.
School
would start in a week. Laura would be a junior in high school and Danni would
be in the fifth grade, attending the intermediate school instead of the
elementary school she’d attended since kindergarten. But that was a whole week
away, so Danni didn’t have to worry about it yet. With the house invaded all
too often by Jason these days, Danni practically lived in the backyard and
pasture now, where her adventures continued to be solo. This particular
afternoon saw her curled up in one of the post oaks—this one’s split trunk had
a perfectly Danni-sized cradle about ten feet off the ground where the large
branches diverged—, her nose buried in the newest Artemis Fowl book. If things were the way they should have been,
Laura would be reading it aloud to her, complete with voices and gestures, like
she had done with all the others in the series.
--
“Mom, can’t you tell Laura she’s not allowed
to invite Jason over anymore?” said Danni, her arms stuck straight out on
either side of her while her mom adjusted the pins holding her half-finished
Merida dress in place. They were getting a head start on Halloween costume
preparations. She might not have the character’s wild red hair, but hers would
be the only home-made, authentic-looking dress, and she would definitely be the
only Merida of the girls at her school who could ride a horse or handle a bow
and arrow.
“Your
dad and I would much rather she invite him over here as often as she wants
during the daytime than for him to take her somewhere else.” She made a
twirling motion with her finger, and Danni turned around to give her access to
the back of the dress.
“But
Laura’s been so mean ever since he started coming over!” Danni protested.
Her
mom chuckled. “Laura’s sixteen,” she said, tugging here and there at the forest
green fabric. “It’s a difficult time for her.”
“What
do you mean?”
“It’s
the same way for every teenager. They get old enough to drive and they suddenly
think they have the whole world figured out, but in reality the only difference
between them and little kids is hormones. It’s a heavy burden to think you know
everything when you really don’t know much at all.”
Danni
frowned. “Are you sure an evil changeling didn’t just swap places with her?”
“Yes.
She’s just a normal teenager.”
“Well
then I’m not going to be a normal teenager.”
Her
mom laughed again. “I’ll remember you said that.”
--
Suddenly
uninterested in reading, Danni tucked the book into the crook of a slightly
higher branch and swung down from her perch, landing like a cat on the grass,
then springing upright and skipping over to where the horses were grazing next
to the fence. She wasn’t allowed to ride them when her dad wasn’t home, not
even if Laura (or Changeling Laura, as Danni had started calling her in her
head lately) was riding. She clicked her tongue and held out her hand. Wiley,
the stout, dark-coated mustang her dad had bought at an auction, was the first
to perk up his ears and amble over.
“Hey
there, boy,” said Danni, patting Wiley on the nose. He snorted and she jumped
back to avoid the spray of black mucous from his nostrils, but some of it still
got on her shirt. With a noise of disgust, she walked away towards the fig
trees, picking off the little bits of snot and wiping them on the grass as she
went. When she reached the spot where the biggest fig trees met, she dropped to
her knees and crawled under the crisscrossing branches that hid her fort from
view. The bucket was still safely tucked right at the base of one of the trees.
When she’d checked yesterday, the almost-frog had been climbing up on top of
the little muddy bank at the edge of the bucket, all four legs fully developed
and its tail mostly gone. As it had grown, it had gone from a dull brown to the
most beautiful shade of green Danni had ever seen. About a week ago, she’d
finally given it a name: Emmie, short for Emerald.
She
frowned. She couldn’t find the frog anywhere in the bucket. She poked around
the moss around to see if Emmie was hiding in a corner somewhere, but found
nothing. With a flood of anger, she realized what must have happened. A minute
later, she was back inside the house and bursting into Laura’s room. “What did
you do with Emmie, Laura?” she demanded. But then she froze. Laura was lying on
her bed, her face buried in her arms, her shoulders shaking. “Laura?”
Laura
lifted her head and looked over at her. Her face was streaked with tears. “Go
away, Danni,” she said. She didn’t say it in the snappish, rude voice she
always used when she was being Changeling Laura, she just sounded miserable.
“What
happened?” said Danni, moving closer to the bed.
“Jason
dumped me, okay?” Laura bit out angrily, before giving herself over to a fresh
wave of sobs.
Danni
watched her for a minute. She’d been hoping this would happen since practically
the moment she met Jason, but somehow she felt no triumph. He was a big dumb
jerk who had turned Laura into a completely different person, but maybe she
really had cared about him. Danni climbed up on the bed and wrapped her arms
around Laura’s shaking shoulders.
“Ew,
what’s on your hands?” said Laura, jumping up into a sitting position and
scooting away.
“Oh,”
said Danni, looking at her hands. “It’s moss from Emmie’s bucket. She’s not
there.”
Laura
looked at Danni, then wiped her eyes. “She’s a frog now,” she said. “She
probably jumped away.”
Danni
wilted slightly where she sat. “I didn’t think about that.”
“Or,”
said Laura slowly, “maybe one of the Unseelies kidnapped her.”
Danni
turned to stare at her sister so fast that she cricked her neck.
“We
should go rescue her,” said Laura.
“Really?”
said Danni.
“Yeah,”
said Laura.
Danni
looked at the smeared makeup on her sister’s face. She had to do something to
make sure this wasn’t just a one-time thing. A compromise. “After we save Emmie,”
she said hesitantly, “if I let you paint my nails, will you play Narnia with
me? You can be Susan if you want, like before. I won’t make you be Jadis.”
Laura
offered her a shaky smile. “Okay.”
